How to Price Your Wraparound Childcare in 2026: Do the Maths

Wraparound childcare is hard to price because no two sessions cost the same. Group sizes, staffing and opening hours all change from one session to the next, and your price has to cover all of them. Here's how to price wraparound childcare by building a simple business model and doing the maths.

How do I price my wraparound childcare?

Start with the quality of care you want to provide, build a simple model of your costs, then test it against different scenarios. Your price needs to work with smaller or larger groups, longer sessions and fewer bookings than you hoped for, not only on a full day.

What does wraparound care typically cost parents?

There's no national price. The Department for Education's National Wraparound Childcare Programme handbook only says that care should be affordable for parents while fees keep providers financially viable.

For a benchmark, the Coram Childcare Survey 2026 found that the average weekly price of an after-school club in England is £69.38. As a rough guide, breakfast clubs tend to charge around £5 to £10 per session and after-school care around £10 to £20, with higher prices in London. Everything depends on where you are and what you offer.

Should you match or undercut local competitors?

No. Knowing what nearby providers charge is useful, and you can look them up on the Best Start in Life childcare finder. But your activities, staffing and costs will be different from theirs. If the quality of your care is higher, your price can be too.

Step 1. How many children can you comfortably care for?

Start with your experience. You already know how many children one adult can look after while giving them a really good experience, and that depends on the children:

Younger children need smaller groups and more help with everyday routines.
Older children can play independently, so groups can be larger.
Children with special educational needs and disabilities need more individual attention.

You might also choose smaller groups on purpose, so your staff really get to know the children. That could even be what sets your club apart.

What are the legal staff-to-child ratios for wraparound care?

For providers on the Compulsory Childcare Register in England, there must be at least one adult for every 30 children, and enough adults at all times to keep children safe. At least one person must hold a first aid certificate.

That's a legal minimum, not a recommendation for good care. Local authorities often suggest one adult to 10 to 15 children, with more where children need extra support. As the owner, you decide the ratio that delivers the care you want to offer.

What actually drives your costs?

Staff are usually your biggest cost. Your list should include:

Staff wages, including holiday pay, employer National Insurance and pension contributions.
Staff training.
Premises, insurance, cleaning and utilities.
Food, equipment and activity materials.
Administration and booking costs, including Ofsted registration and Disclosure and Barring Service checks.

⭐ Eequ Pro Tip: If you're usually one of the adults on shift, run your numbers twice: once with you unpaid and once paying someone to cover you. The second figure tells you whether the business still works when you're off sick.

Step 2. What does it cost per child, per session?

Your staffing cost depends on how many adults you need and how many hours you pay them for. In wraparound care, those hours vary a lot. A breakfast club might run from 7.30am to 9.30am, just two hours, while an after-school club might run from 2.30pm to 7pm, four and a half hours. You might need the same number of adults for both, but the cost is very different.

For illustration, assume each staff member costs £16 an hour including employment costs (the National Living Wage is £12.71), premises and shared expenses are £40 per session, and food and materials cost £2 per child.

Breakfast club, small group: 2 staff, 2 hours, 10 children. Cost per child: £12.40.
After-school club, small group: 2 staff, 4.5 hours, 10 children. Cost per child: £20.40.
After-school club, larger group: 2 staff, 4.5 hours, 20 children. Cost per child: £11.20.
After-school club, extra support: 3 staff, 4.5 hours, 10 children. Cost per child: £27.60.

The same service could cost £11.20 or £27.60 per child, simply because of staffing and group size. These figures assume every place is full. Step 5 looks at what happens when places go unsold.

Step 3. How easy is it to recruit the staff you need?

Wraparound care is awkward to staff. Two hours early in the morning and four and a half hours in the afternoon isn't an attractive pattern for everyone. Some options:

Pay more per hour than the minimum to attract reliable people.
Employ different people for each session. Someone living nearby may be happy with split shifts, but someone travelling a distance may not.
Ask parents who might welcome part-time work during school hours. A free childcare place can be an extra perk, but it uses a place you could sell and can't count towards minimum wage.
Advertise to college students and recent school leavers, especially for afternoons and holiday clubs, while checking experience, safeguarding and age restrictions.

Recruiting and managing staff also takes your time: interviews, checks, rotas and covering absences. Include the actual costs in your operating expenses.

⭐ Eequ Pro Tip: If you're the owner-manager, you don't need to add a management salary to your costs. The profit left over is your potential earnings. But keep track of your hours. Earning £30,000 a year while managing every gap yourself is a very different proposition from earning the same with a small, reliable team.

How do fixed premises costs affect your profit?

If you pay by the hour, for example in a village hall, the cost is easy to build into each session. If you pay a fixed rent, the more hours you open, the cheaper your premises become per hour. With rent of £7,200 a year:

After-school club only (3pm to 6pm, term time): £12.63 per hour.
Add a breakfast club (8am to 9am, term time): £9.47 per hour.
Add a holiday club (8am to 6pm, 10 weeks): £5.71 per hour.

You're already paying for the space, so every extra session you can fill and staff adds profit without adding rent. Base your sums on your actual calendar: term time is about 190 days (38 weeks), and holiday clubs could add another 50.

Step 4. How much should you charge?

Charge enough to cover your cost per session at a realistic number of bookings, with a worthwhile profit left over. Work it out in four steps:

Cost per session: paid staff plus that session's share of your other expenses.
Realistic paid bookings: a club with 30 places may average only 20 bookings.
Session revenue: paid bookings × price per booking.
Profit: session revenue minus session costs, before tax.

Take the larger after-school club from Step 2, where the owner is one of the two adults. With 20 paid bookings at £15, revenue is £300. Costs for one paid adult, premises and food come to £152, leaving £148 for the owner. Over 190 days, that's £28,120 a year before tax.

As bookings grow, profit can rise quickly, but only while your existing team can safely take more children. Adding another member of staff means redoing the sums.

Step 5. How profitable could your business be?

Test what happens when places go unsold, because staffing and most other costs stay the same. In the example above, 16 bookings instead of 20 brings the yearly profit down from £28,120 to £18,240. Run this for each type of session across your year to see whether the business gives you a worthwhile income.

Higher-quality care may cost more to run, but it can justify a higher price. A smaller, excellent club at a higher price can work better than a large, cheap club with little individual attention.

Frequently asked questions

Should I charge per session or for the whole term?

Most providers charge per session but ask parents to book for the term, so both sides know what's booked and paid for. A policy that's too strict can put parents off booking ahead, which makes staffing harder to plan.

⭐ Eequ Pro Tip: Offer a discount for booking several sessions, charge slightly more for occasional sessions, and set a clear cancellation notice period after which the session is still payable. 48 hours is reasonable.

How does Tax-Free Childcare affect what parents pay?

For every £8 eligible parents pay into their Tax-Free Childcare account from their take-home pay, the government adds £2, up to £2,000 per child a year (£4,000 for a disabled child). That's the same as adding back basic-rate income tax, so the childcare is effectively paid from pre-tax income. You still receive your full price.

⭐ Eequ Pro Tip: Eequ lets eligible parents link their Tax-Free Childcare account at checkout, and payments go to your bank account automatically with no processing fee for you, so you don't have to chase or match payments by hand.

Do I need to register with Ofsted to accept Tax-Free Childcare?

If you're an independent provider, yes. You must be registered to sign up to Tax-Free Childcare, and that includes clubs run by an independent provider on school premises. Read the guidance on registering school-based provision and the registration exemptions. Ofsted's fees vary by type of childcare.

How will I know if my prices are right?

Your first few terms will tell you. A waiting list may mean you could charge more or expand. Empty places don't automatically mean cutting your price: you may need to improve your offer or reach more families. Keep checking how many places are booked, whether each session makes a worthwhile profit, and whether rising demand needs more staff.

Price with confidence

Good pricing starts with understanding your business model. Once you know what each session costs and which levers change it, you can set prices with confidence and review them as you grow. Eequ, the booking system for children's activity providers, holiday clubs, wraparound care and sports clubs, shows your bookings and waiting lists for every session, so you can see which prices are working. Find out how Eequ works for your club.

Sources

Figures are illustrative. Accurate as of October 2026. Always check GOV.UK for the latest guidance.